Singapore has recently announced the easing of anti-COVID-19 restrictions in a move considered widely as shifting to “living with the virus”. The news has naturally given rise to a new round of debate over Hong Kong’s anti-pandemic strategy among local residents, who have showed signs of anti-pandemic fatigue. However, Hong Kong is far from ready to follow suit, even if “losing out” to Singapore is a legitimate concern.
While a sense of urgency to catch up with our long-standing competitor is welcome, we must take the timing, actual situation or reality into consideration prior to rolling out initiatives that concern Hong Kong’s future. In this case, inopportune timing in changing our anti-COVID-19 strategy would be a misstep that could bring huge costs to Hong Kong society. A comparison with the actual situations of Singapore and Hong Kong will explain why Hong Kong cannot afford to relax its curbs on the virus yet.
Despite the abundant aid from the mainland, it would be a grave mistake to assume mainland medical staff and resources will make up whatever shortfall exists in Hong Kong’s capacity and thus rashly relax the anti-pandemic regime
The vast majority of Singapore’s population has been fully vaccinated, and nearly all individuals eligible for taking the booster have taken the jab. Herd immunity is also taking root, as many of the infected patients have recovered from the disease. These favorable conditions afford Singapore the confidence to take its latest move to relax its anti-pandemic regime.
While Hong Kong is catching up with its vaccination rates, with 90 percent of the local population having received the first jab, 80 percent having taken the second dose and 20 percent the booster, the data from the elderly and the young population is much less reassuring. Only 69 percent of those aged 70 and above and 11 percent of children aged 3 to 11 are vaccinated with a second dose, and the proportion of those having received the booster is miserably lower.
However low the fatality rate of omicron is among its more-virulent strains, it has shown no mercy to Hong Kong people. Dr Siddharth Sridhar, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, compared the pandemic outbreaks in Hong Kong with places such as Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, Denmark, New Zealand, etc, and concluded that our city has the highest death rate over recent days. He chiefly blamed the city’s overwhelmed healthcare system, the dismally low vaccination rate among the elderly, and the low rates of prior infection, while some other experts such as Dr Charles Ng also cited the defects in data collection.
Meanwhile, medical experts discovered that the absolute number of deaths caused by omicron is not much lower than that of the delta variant because its extreme contagiousness has victimized a much bigger portion of the population.
These findings suggest that herd immunity is out of reach for Hong Kong at this point. Prematurely easing anti-pandemic restrictions will put more lives at stake. The omicron-induced fifth wave has already cost more than 7,000 precious lives in Hong Kong, and no one can foresee when the number will peak. Hong Kong society simply cannot afford to bet against the odds with human lives.
The number of daily local infections in Singapore peaked at 26,000 on Feb 22, then gradually dropped to about 7,000 to 13,000 cases in the past week. When announcing the latest move to ease COVID-19 curbs, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted the resilience of the country’s medical system, which had survived considerable stress at the height of the omicron outbreak. Today, omicron still exerts a heavy burden on Singapore’s healthcare system, but the pressure has eased. Singapore’s medical system showed no signs of being overstretched during the crest of the outbreak. Hong Kong’s medical system is simply no match for Singapore’s in terms of resilience amid daunting demand for medical services.
The fifth wave of the outbreak has exposed at least three weaknesses of Hong Kong’s medical system. The first is its insufficient capacity to deal with a sudden surge in demand. The system struggled to cope with demand when daily infections exceeded 10,000, and was quickly overwhelmed after daily cases climbed above 50,000. The second pitfall is the lack of effective coordination between the public and private medical sectors. Private hospitals failed to take over the excessive demand for services when public hospitals were overwhelmed, resulting in delayed treatments and the worsening health conditions that caused the deaths of many patients. The third shortcoming is the inadequate provision of medical care for the elderly homes, whose residents are the most vulnerable to the virus.
Fortunately, the motherland has Hong Kong’s back. Upon the special administrative region government’s request, the central government took it on with seamless coordination among various departments: several groups of mainland medical experts were dispatched to Hong Kong to offer valuable advice, followed by the arrival of medical crews to assist in attending to the patients; at the same time, hospitals have been built by mainland contractors to deliver more than 20,000 additional beds. The central government has also sent a team of Chinese medical specialists upon Hong Kong’s request.
But despite the abundant aid from the mainland, it would be a grave mistake to assume mainland medical staff and resources will make up whatever shortfall exists in Hong Kong’s capacity and thus rashly relax the anti-pandemic regime. Not only would the mainland’s support efforts go down the drain if Hong Kong were to discard the “dynamic zero infection” strategy, but it would also send a chilling message to these angels in white who came to the rescue of Hong Kong.
Moreover, the crowded living space in Hong Kong is more conducive to the spread of the virus, whereas Singapore people have a more-spacious living environment. Meanwhile, Hong Kong as a modern Chinese metropolis is characterized by its strong connection with the world together with its inextricable ties with the mainland, which remains the fastest-growing economy amid the onslaught of the pandemic. These ties include Hong Kong’s heavy dependence on mainland supplies of foods and daily necessities, and the frequent personnel exchanges between the two sides. If Hong Kong were to prematurely and significantly relax its anti-pandemic regime while the mainland adheres to the “dynamic zero infection” strategy, there would be little hope of resuming quarantine-free travel between the two sides soon, which would bode poorly for the local economy. Singapore does not have such concerns.
The author is a Hong Kong member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the Hong Kong New Era Development Thinktank.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.